Little Big Shot (1935)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Blistering performances.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions.Remarkable. Film in era of The Great Depression.Two sidewalk con artists, obviously uneducated. I keep harping on that. They can't earn a living, much less their hotel rent.Into their lives appear a little darling, akin to screen mini-goddess S. Temple. This is the typical orphan story. The child can sing, act and dance, earning money to put the crooks out of their misery.Little big shot. Little sure shot. Little Miss Marker. Damon Runyon tales.Stupid crook says the cops are coming (Horton). Should have spoken in code. Dumb idiot. Horton keeps hesitating in his speech, like a cheap version of Frank Morgan. Did you see Horton as the Wizard of Oz? No, you did not. I remember Horton from old Fred Astaire movies.Jason thrown under the bus for S. Temple, who got tons more publicity. Temple got thrown under the bus for J. Garland (again, Wizard of Oz). Temple's career took a nosedive, after The Little Princess, in which Jason got lower billing as a slimy little slavey character. Also, another of Temple's swan song attempts was the half-hearted fairyland wannabe film (of Wizard of Oz) The Blue Bird, in which Jason got a supporting role of the sick child.J. Garland was used up by Hollywood, and then conveniently thrown under the bus due to her "ill health", vis a vis at the same time the all of a sudden disappearance of LB Mayer. Sad, eh what? Temple got too old, married way too young, film career dying on the vine.I never knew Jason starred in any film, but in Little Big Shot I am so surprised -- and in a good way. She sings. She dances. There is no S. Temple hogging the camera.I study the Great Depression. I am a degreed historian, film critic and movie reviewer. I love song and dance films. I hate black and white, however.

This movie is one of the best and the cast could not have been better. Jason's acting and singing are superior and Armstrong, Horton and Farrell are amazing. Too bad Jack LaRue was often overlooked as a fine performer. This movie needs more exposure and hopefully Amazon will have it available soon for instant video. If you have not watched this movie, do it soon. Check listings at TCM and if you have a DVR, record it. I have watched it over and over and only wish I had a hardcopy. The thugs are creepy but Sybil's darling acting is stellar and her sweet accent just add more to the " I'm a Little Big Shot" is precious and priceless.

A routine, if somewhat violent gangster melodrama, filmed on a moderate budget with worthy players struggling to bring some life into a routine array of the usual stock characters (which were still going strong when Abbott and Costello re-made the first scenes of the movie far more amusingly as Buck Privates in 1941). Admittedly, as said, some of the players try hard (too hard in the case of Edward Everett Horton, whose efforts serve to highlight the lack of inspiration in the writing of his lines and business), and Miss Jason is most definitely a worthy find. Unfortunately, despite her evident talents and her precocious maturity, there were several moppets ahead of her in the Hollywood pecking order, including box office giant, Shirley Temple. All told, by the high standards (script, budget, players) we'd come to expect of a Michael Curtiz movie at this stage (his previous film was Front Page Woman; his next, Captain Blood), Little Big Shot must be rated a big disappointment.

Is this another Damon Runyon story, like "Little Miss Marker"? It all sounds too familiar. As far as giving way for the black kids in the film, look up Sybil Jason's biography and you might a bit of British Jewishness in there (her uncle Harry Jacobson was a British band leader), which didn't sit well with Hollywood in those days.Maybe that's why she didn't get too far. I was born in Hollywood, BTW, and I know a lot of Hollywood stuff and stories. My schools were full of child actors, my mother went to junior high in Hollywood with Judy Garland, before going to the MGM Schoolhouse. And Ricardo Montalban was a classmate of my mother.Glenda Farrell is gorgeous and glamorous, as always. And Edward Everett Horton as a soda jerk is hysterical.